I've been awake all night thinking about how I can help DD and thought I'd try and ask for some opinions on here. I'll try and keep it as brief as possible...
DD is 4.5. I split from her dad 3.5 years ago. I now live with DP and have done for 2 years and all is fine. She is a happy and bright girl who lives school and is doing really well, does a few activities after school and doing great at them, gets on well with DP, we live very near my parents who she adores and my brother and sisters too.
The contact arrangement we have is that Ex picks up DD on Friday after school. Takes her to his and then brings her back on Sunday late afternoon. We had a big battle in court to get there as he was asking for a lot more contact and DD was very young and he'd had nothing to do with her until the point when I left (his choice) such as never having fed, bathed or put her to bed. While we were going through the court process, Ex saw DD for the day on a Saturday or Sunday and she was fine with that.
Since she started staying overnight, just over 2 years now she has hated going. It varies how upset she gets, but it's been getting progressively worse, when I thought it would be getting better. I have tried to talk to Ex about it but he is not easy to talk to, and tried emailing him to try and sort things out. I suggest things that would make it easier for DD based on what she says to me when I ask her why she is upset such as emailing me a couple of days before contact and let me know his plans so I can tell her and prepare her a bit, or phoning during the time between contacts to keep in touch a bit more. Sometimes he does these things a few times and then stops or he doesn't do them at all.
For the last few months DD has been distraught when he picks her up. She changes into a sad and unhappy little girl and seems to withdraw. I've tried explaining on very simple terms about court and why she has to go and I think she understands a little but still hates going. I now feel that I need to do something more to help her. Going back to court won't help as I don't think a judge would reduce contact without a good reason and I'm not sure it's right to do that either but I think it might be easier to find out exactly what DDs problem with going is. I've decided I'm going to email Ex on Monday and tell him all the things DD says she doesn't like about going. But I wondered if anyone knew if there was someone I could get to talk to her. I think it needs to be someone neutral and I was thinking along the lines of a play therapist ( if that exists!) who can go through things with her and try and get to the bottom of what's wrong. If that is such a thing, does anyone know how I can go about someone seeing DD? I'm happy to pay for it as I think it's getting necessary to do something more now, or can it just be a case of asking the GP for a referral?
Any other help or advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks.